‘RHOSLC’: Meredith Marks Just Became an All-Time Best Housewife

The rumors of Meredith Marks’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. After spending the first half of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 5 so sidelined that fans foamed at the mouth for her snowflake, Mother Marks has delivered a masterclass so fearless that it invalidates any claims against her. We are living in the world according to Meredith now. And if you don’t like it, “You can leave!”

RHOSLC has returned from its holiday-induced slumber with an absolutely bonkers episode, the penultimate outing to the best season yet. It’s truly been something special, as each episode proves that RHOSLC is the greatest Housewives iteration of not just our time, but quite possibly ever.

It’s so funny to think the episode began with Lisa wanting to get to the bottom of the B-team’s gossip about her. That did not happen. No one got to the bottom of anything.

Instead, a Sprinter van detour to the depths of hell released a beast in Meredith that can’t be placed back in its cage. As we all know, when there’s a She Wolf in your closet, you simply have to let it out so it can breathe.

First, Meredith goes to Heather, still disgusted that Britani put her on display the night before. Meredith threw Angie out of her bat mitzvah in support of Britani, and now Britani’s intimating that Meredith has an eating disorder? Utterly classless. Meredith does not even take pills. She just pops a sleeping pill or two on an international trip, which these ladies so happen to be on.

Meredith takes every accusation against her with such extreme weight. She’s a lawyer at her core, obsessed with litigating all behaviors which disturb her.

So, even though the Sprinter drive starts with Lisa trying to clarify what Bronwyn, Angie, Whitney, and Heather said about her, it quickly devolves into utter chaos. As Whitney does her little “I’m little girl, hear me roar” schtick, she and Lisa go to the jugular, only to be cut off by a realization that Britani is recording them.

Suddenly, all fights fall to the wayside and the sisterhood of the traveling snowflakes solidifies. All the women are utterly dismayed with Britani for recording their conversations, violating their trust, and just being a general weirdo. And sure, you may wonder why it matters if this show’s already being filmed, but it’s surely a bit creepy.

Britani claims this footage was so she could congratulate her daughter on her math test, then she claims she was trying to take a selfie and failed. Oh, or maybe she wanted a video of the scenery? I don’t know. She’s lying. She’s bad at lying. Everyone hates her now. Except for me, the most devout soldier of the Britani army. She may have messed up, but she is allowed a blip or two. Or three… OK, she has unlimited passes. She could run over someone in cold blood and I’d defend it.

Meredith, on the other hand, is surely in her DMs looking for intel on ruining Britani’s life. She was already fed up with Britani. Now, she’s out for blood.

“Clearly, we can see who has issues here. And it is not me,” Meredith sneaks into the conversation, just to diminish those pill-popping rumors.

Even Britani’s strongest ally, Heather, completely throws her under the sprinter van. The Monica Garcia PTSD is so severe that these women truly go to the jugular, hitting Britani with hammers until she runs off the van and sobs.

Whitney, who learned empathy on her hilling journey, consoles Britani, leading to a hilarious conversation about deleted photos, deleted deleted photos, and hidden photos. Britani knows her way around an iPhone. This diva could be the CEO of Apple at any point she wanted, but there’s no way Tim Cook could sing as angelically.

Unfortunately, Britani’s solid knowledge of the tech world does show she knew what she was doing. She was recording that drama so she and Jared “The Flop” Osmond could giggle together later.

Naturally, the women follow this with an ATV ride over the most treacherous bridge known to man. I’m sure it’s really sturdy and all, but it doesn’t seem smart to send the most volatile cast on TV on a bridge like this. Had Meredith shared an ATV with Britani, she would’ve driven off the cliff.

Of course, everyone survives the drive, although Britani would’ve been better off dead. Desperately seeking a way back into the fold, Britani decides to pull out the big guns. I truly could never have imagined that the “one thing” Britani hasn’t come clean about is… that she has sex with Jared. We knew that.

And yet, it kind of works. The Mormon shame lever is an immediate fail-safe on this cast, one that Bronwyn pulled just a day before. Maybe the newbies have more in common than they realize.

Britani recording the women may seem like a huge violation of their privacy, but people fail to understand that she was raised LDS. She’s twice divorced. She has sex with her boyfriend who also has sex with other women. So yeah, she “recorded” them, if you want to call it that, but let’s focus on what’s important: women supporting women.

The absurdly beautiful scene becomes even funnier when Meredith immediately pops the balloons, revealing she’s still pissed beyond belief and doesn’t care about Britani’s Mormon shame whatsoever.

What she wants to know is if Britani put a recording device in her room. Something really cool about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the cast’s love for the conspiratorial, adding an aura of murder mystery to each plot. Where else can we find a plot like “Did Meredith create a fake funeral for her father to distract from calling the feds on Jen?” The flair for the psychotic just elevates the show.

At dinner, the women take a brief break from Britani bashing to come for Bronwyn. It’s a bad week for the newbies, as Bronwyn’s tattletaling to Lisa has shown Whitney and Angie exactly what a snake she is.

“Two faced,” Heather mumbles to Whitney from across the table, as Whitney nods. Whitney and Heather, GOOD weather! I’ve always said that, except for the times I didn’t.

And finally, Meredith ascends to legendary status, revealing her scariest form as she locks in on Britani. But it’s Heather—dressed like she’s ready to sing “Million Reasons”—who causes Meredith to short-circuit.

The pinball machine of drama is so beautiful, as the conversation about Lisa that spiraled into this absolute disaster has now circled back for a grand finale. The women did insinuate that both Lisa and Meredith defended Todd because they’ve had, or been accused of, affairs, something that Bronwyn of course neglected to let the twins of terror know.

Embroiled in rage, Meredith rebuffs Heather’s attempt to do an audio test, instead storming off to her room to talk trash with Lisa. This does serve as a great audio test, given it echoes throughout the entire villa, vindicating Britani once and for all. The only thing she’s guilty of is being Brit-mazing!

“I’ve had enough of the liiiiies… from everyone. Get your stories straight. Treat me with kindness and respect. Don’t tell my story. I don’t cosign on affairs and infidelity,” is such a monologue.

Meredith is (currently) the most captivating wordsmith in this entire franchise, and she just proved exactly why she’s not going anywhere.

She is a modern-day Luann de Lesseps, continuing to evolve from the classy countess to a beautifully unhinged monster, one who proves the best Housewives are multi-faceted, confusing creatures. Meredith has consistently been a solid supporting member of the improv troupe, but tonight, she came alive. I feel like I just watched a good friend run a marathon. I’m so proud of her.

There’s only one episode left in the season, a humbling fact that shows life isn’t always fair. We deserve 20 episodes, or at least 18, but alas. This unprecedented run of perfect episodes has to end at some point. Someone needs to convince Britani to use her footage to edit extra episodes. Britani knows her way around the photos app. She probably can handle Adobe Premiere Pro.